


Life Lived Forward (But Judged in Reverse)

by SoleminiSanction



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Gen, Notfic, Reverse Robins AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 20:24:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoleminiSanction/pseuds/SoleminiSanction
Summary: Bruce has only been Batman for a year when Talia drops Damian at his door. Initially reluctant to put a child in danger, he eventually relents to the boy's insistence to accompany him on his nightly missions. Drawing inspiration from his father's love of folk heroes, Damian chooses the name Robin Hood, which soon gets shortened to just Robin.He is the first, but not the last, to hold that name.(A not-fic collection of semi-ongoing ideas/outlines for a Reverse Robins AU that I'll probably never write. Originally posted on my Tumblr, revised to re-post here)





	1. Reverse Robins, Pt. 1

  * Bruce has only been Batman for a year when Talia drops their child, Damian, at his door. The boy insists on accompanying his father on the nightly missions, but Bruce is reluctant to put a child in danger. They eventually reach a compromise where Damian stays at range (usually on the rooftop or through windows) for the first few years, favoring a crossbow as his weapon of choice.  
  
  

  * Upon learning of his father’s inspirations (Zorro and the Grey Ghost), Damian throws himself into folk tales of vigilante heroes to find a name for himself. He eventually selects Robin Hood due to his archery skills, which soon gets shortened down to Robin.  
  
  

  * Years go by, and Damian’s time as Robin softens him. He becomes a better person, less violent and more willing to reach out for allies than what the al-Ghuls expected. But he also chafes under his father’s unyielding morals,  
which eventually leads to him leaving the Manor at 17 to travel the world, attend college, and eventually start a superhero team of his own.  
  
  

  * When he decides it’s time to shed his childish trappings, Jon Kent offers him a Kryptonian name – Nightwing – to use instead.

* * *

  * Back in Gotham, Batman catches a young boy taking pictures of him one dark Gotham night. Since little Tim Drake refuses to give up his camera, Bruce drags him back to the Cave. Turns out that they’re neighbors, and Tim already figured out Batman’s identity after seeing Damian win a fight in civilian clothes before the older boy quite grew out of his assassin upbringing.  
  
  

  * Bruce takes a liking to Tim and initially intended to simply mentor him in detective work to make good use of his untapped parental anxiety. But soon after they meet, Tim’s parents disappear on one of their trips and are presumed dead. Bruce can’t bear to let this brilliant boy rot in the system or, worse, be exploited by the Drake Industries Board of Directors, so he lawyers up and gets himself appointed Tim’s guardian.  
  
  

  * Tim absolutely worships Damian the first few times they meet, which makes it all the sadder that Damian haaaaaaaaaaates him. In his eyes, this spoiled rich brat has invaded his home, stolen his father’s love and usurped the hero role that _he _created. Mix that in with jealousy over how easily Tim and Bruce get along and everything turns sour.  
  
Damian’s flat-out cruel to the kid the few times they meet and picks equally vicious fights with Bruce, eventually cutting ties and estranging himself from Gotham altogether. Tim soldiers on, trying to keep Bruce’s spirit up and be the Robin he needs…  
  
  

  * …until he gets word that his mother might still be alive and is being held by a terrorist group in Haiti. He _has_ to find her.  
  
  

  * It's a trap. The Joker is there.  
  
  

  * Tim doesn’t come home.

* * *

  * After Tim’s funeral, Bruce is devastated – not helped by vicious rumors that this was his ruthless corporate take-over plan all along – and Damian, when he finds out, is wracked with guilt. But they’re both too stubborn to seek the other out for comfort.  
  
  

  * That is, until a scruffy street kid with a heavy Gotham accent turns up at Titans’ Tower, demands to see Nightwing, and flings an entire stack of newspaper clippings into his face.  
  
“Fix. This. Shit.”  
  
  

  * Apparently, the Nightwing-First Robin connection is common knowledge on the Gotham streets, as is the fact that Batman has spent the last few months slowly losing his shit. Gotham sucks, but it sucks even more when Batman isn’t on his game, so Jason Todd has come to drag Damian back by force if he has to.  
  
  

  * And Damian does return – but only as Nightwing. Which isn’t good enough for Jason. So he swipes Tim’s gear and dives into a rescue mission on his own.  
  
  

  * He makes it very clear that he’s not giving up unless Batman gets his Robin back and, since he’s already taking care of himself while his mother struggles with her addiction, Bruce agrees to make him the third. Damian helps train the kid and bonds are slowly but surely re-mended. Things aren’t perfect. But they do get better.

* * *

  * Dick Grayson comes into their lives at last on the whims of fate.  
  
Jason talks Dami into a “day off” at the circus, where they happen to be in the audience when the Flying Graysons fall. Damian is the first person at the newly-orphaned child’s side. Dick latches onto him like a baby duck and Damian gets attached almost as fast.  
  
It doesn’t take much to bring Bruce around to this idea of adopting him either, particularly not after Damian threatens to do it himself.  
  
  

  * There’s some initial tension between Jason and Dick, mostly stemming from Jason’s fear that he’s going to be replaced. Bruce, recognizing a familiar pattern, puts his foot down. In the aftermath of the resulting shouting match, Dick and Jay reach an understanding. Jason stays Robin while the little circus brat gets trained, but he’s already starting to make plans for taking up a new identity of his own.  
  
  

  * Until Dick vanishes from the Cave.


	2. Reverse Robins, Pt. 2

  * The one who took Dick is Tim, of course, back from the dead and operating as Red Hood. He’s been in Gotham nearly two years, secretly hacking corrupt corporations to steal their cash, buying up his parents’ company and laying the groundwork for his plans.  
  
  

  * Incidentally, those plans do _not_ involve hurting little Dickie Grayson, not even a bit. The kidnapping, week-long imprisonment, and trail of threatening clues are all a distraction. But he does take the opportunity to work in some good ol’ fashioned Stockholm Syndrome, treating the kid sweet as can be even as he attempts to sow doubt in his mind about the Waynes’ intentions. He even reveals his identity, right before returning him unharmed and slipping away in the confusion caused by several explosions that go off around the city at the same time.  
  
  

  * When things calm down, Dick tells the Bats that “Red Hood” is Tim Drake, but Bruce and Damian say it’s impossible. Tim Drake is dead. Dick is devastated, because Tim told him that they wouldn’t believe, and he’d been so sure they trusted him more than that.   
  
  

  * It’s only days later, when they learn that the explosions took out not only a number of major crime lords but the remaining members of the old Drake Industries board, that Batman makes the connection to the D.I. buy-out and realizes the truth.   
  
  

  * By then, Red Hood’s turned up at at Titans Tower to accost Jay. His fixation is on tearing down the Waynes, sure, but also on “rescuing” Jason and Dick.  
  
“You’ll never be good enough, Jaybird. I wasn’t. And Dick won’t be either. No matter what we give up for them – his circus, your mother, my _life_ – it’ll never be enough. We’re not their blood, not family. We’re just tools to be used up and thrown away.”  
  

  * Unfortunately, pit madness can translate that desire into, “I’d rather see you dead than with them” so when Jason initially refutes Tim, he gets his ass kicked, saved at the last second by timely intervention from the other Titans.  
  
  

  * Things culminate in a number of knock-down, drag-out fights between Red Hood, Batman and Nightwing; and long story short Tim eventually winds up in jail. That is, until a sympathetic Jason helps him escape, thinking his predecessor deserves a second chance at being a hero.  
  
  

  * During the Battle for the Cowl, Tim-as-Batman approaches Jason with an offer: be my Robin. And Jason – who, as you’ll remember, was already thinking about passing the role to Dick – agrees. But not the way Tim is expecting.  
  
  

  * Jay sabotages Tim’s plans from the inside, clearing the way for Damian to officially claim his father’s mantle. But in the aftermath, Jason tracks Tim down and insists they move into one of the safe-houses together.  
  
Part of Robin’s job is to keep Batman from getting too lost in the darkness, so now Red Robin will do the same for Red Hood.  
  
  

  * They’re working together when they uncover the first clue that Bruce is still alive and stick around just long enough for Jason to graduate high school before taking off on the whirlwind adventure to find him.


	3. Red Hood and the Outlaws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This post is brought to you in part by the lovely people at the Capes & Coffee Discord server. Ask your fandom heart if loving Tim Drake and the entire Bat-family is right for you, today!

  * Once upon a time, the first Robin (Damian) and his friends – including Superboy (Jonathan Kent), Kid Flash (Wallace R. West), Speedy (Emiko Queen) and the mysterious Djinn – started a team called the Teen Titans, and things were pretty okay. So okay, in fact, that the roster grew to include most if not all of the teen heroes and sidekicks popping up around the same time.  
  
Eventually, the teens grow into young adulthood, including Wally taking over as The Flash after his uncle passes away. They decide it’s their responsibility to provide mentorship to the new, upcoming generation. So a secondary team of younger Teen Titans was recruited, including the new hero Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark), archer Arrowette (Cissie King-Jones), Wally’s eager young cousin Kid Flash II (Bart Allen), and Kon-el the Metropolis Kid, a clone of Superman (also known as Conner Kent at home in Kansas).   
  
  

  * But one person it didn’t include was Robin II, Tim Drake, because his relationship with Damian is bad. _Really_ bad. The-reason-Damian-won’t-speak-to-his-father bad. Doesn’t help that Damian once lost his temper during a spar and purposefully broke the kid’s arm. So it’s better for everyone if he just stays home in Gotham with his buddy Batgirl (Cassandra Cain).   
  
  

  * Then, the five previously-named members of the younger Titans (including their civilian friend Greta Hayes) wind up in Gotham tracking a wild case that Robin happens to be tracing as a local lead. They meet up, work everything out, and take down the baddie together with no help from the older team. And afterwards, Robin lies to Batman to cover for them regarding the metas-in-Gotham rule. So naturally, they’re friends for life.  
  
(Bruce knows he was there. Of course he knows. But Tim finally has friends his own age and he doesn’t want to scare them off, so he lets them all think they’ve gotten way with it.)  
  
  

  * The gang starts hanging out with Tim whenever they can visit and/or sneak him away without the older Titans (or at least, those who are closet to/most attached to Nightwing) knowing. Eventually, they start inviting him to the Tower on weekends when Nightwing will be away, which Batman allows. Everything works out pretty great.   
  
  

  * Until it doesn’t.

  * Damian comes back early to find _the impostor, the spoiled brat who stole his name and his place at Father’s side_, hanging around his new home. There’s a huge dust-up that eventually ends with Tim back in Gotham and a lot of strained relationships between generations, especially among the families.   
  
Jon has always been a little awkward around his dad’s clone, but they’d been doing all right…right up until he sides with Damian, insisting that his friend is right to be upset, that it wasn’t Bruce’s name to give away (even if Damian wasn’t using it), and that Tim didn’t need it as much as Damian did. A furious Kon demands to know how taking in an orphan is a bad thing or all that different from taking in your abandoned clone; declares Damian a bully and Jon a bully for supporting him; and refuses to speak to him for a month.   
  
And Wally, well. He doesn’t side with Damian, but he doesn’t speak up against him either. Partially, because Dami’s his friend, but mostly because the blood child vs. adopted child thing scares him. After all, he’s not even Barry’s step-son, like the little guy he shares a name with. He’s just the cousin of a cousin. Bart is Barry’s grandson. What if people start thinking _he’s_ the better heir to the Flash legacy?  
  
  

  * Needless to say, things around the Tower are pretty tense.  
  


  * Then Robin dies. 

  * Tim Drake dies alone, in Haiti, and his friends in the Titans are devastated. There’s a massive falling out at his memorial, with Kon, Bart and Cassie especially ripping in to a guilt-ridden Nightwing. A lot of bridges get burned, and a chunk of the younger generation eventually splits off, becoming the new Teen Titans while the original, older gen is the Titans.   
  
  

  * Over the next few months/years, things continue to go wrong. It doesn’t happen all at once, but…  
  

  * They lose Bart first. Cissie retires shortly thereafter.   
  

  * Greta dies/nearly dies and is so traumatized by the event that she too leaves, despite finally acquiring powers of her own.   
  

  * They lose others, too. To retirement, injury and death alike. The last one to go is Conner, dying heroically to save the world.   
  


  * Finally, a disillusioned Cassie returns her gauntlets and lasso to Diana and quits, disappearing into a quiet retirement with no contact in the hero community at all.

* * *

  * Now we jump ahead.  
  
  

  * Tim’s back as the Red Hood, his mind revived by Nyssa al’Ghul and his pit-rage directed towards Gotham. But sometime between his eventual arrest (from which Jason set him free) and the equivalent to Battle for the Cowl, his rage fades, and he finds himself at the door to Cassie Sandsmark’s apartment.  
  
Which is impressive, because Cassie’s spent years living under a false name – Drusilla Priam – and sworn off all contact with costumed heroes. But Tim finds her anyway, and he’s been practicing the speech with his explanations and apologies. No speech issue is going to get in his way, it’s too important.   
  
And yet, when she answer the door, all his heart lets him say is “…_Cassie_.”  
  
It’s been so many years, but Cassie knows that voice. She knows the pretty, haunted blue eyes staring back at her from under a hood and white hair. She tugs his scarf down to see his face, hardly daring to believe, and the two old friends collapse into each other in a desperate hug of relief and tears. 

  * Once they’ve got the reunion out of their system, Tim tells Cassie why he’s here: he’s been picking up signals in an old code the Core Four used to use when they thought Batman or the older Titans were snooping on their comms.   
  
This signal doesn’t come from Earth, nor from space. It comes from somewhere in _time_ – specifically, the distant future. Like where Bart came from. Tim’s convinced that Bart must be alive there, and is trying to contact someone to bring him back.   
  
  

  * Cassie immediately agrees to help. They split up for a bit so she can sneak to Themyscira and steal back her gear without anyone noticing.  
  
But while she’s there, she happens to meet the new Wonder Girl, the only one to ever take on her name – Donna Troy. And this girl? She’s amazing. Cassie immediately loves her and wouldn’t dream of taking the Wonder Girl name away. 
  * So instead, she claims a new name for herself: **Iliona**. (After the ancient name for Troy, where the original Princess Cassandra was from)

  * Together, they break into various labs and steal the pieces needed for Tim to build a “chrono-tracker,” then bust into Star Labs with the help of Cissie and Greta to make use of their time machine.   
  

  * One quick visit to the 31st century later, it turns out both Conner and Bart have been revived by the Legion of Superheroes, and many happy reunions are had.   
  

  * Upon returning to the 21st century, Kon-el and the newly-renamed Impulse and Iliona make a big re-entrance at some major crisis point while Red Hood helps from the shadows. Conner and Bart have some touching “oh thank god you’re alive (again)” reunions with their respective older brothers/fatherly mentor figure types and everything’s pretty happy.

* * *

  * Once the dust settles, Tim tries to disappear again. But the other three track him down less than 24 hours later.   
  
  

  * Tim tries to tell them that they all have the chance to be heroes again, but can’t ever go back there. He’s done too much damage and killed too many people. He’s a wanted criminal, a renegade and an outlaw. The community would never accept him, and the bats certainly won’t either.   
  
  

  * His friends’ response:   
  
“Fuck Batman, and fuck heroes. We’d rather be Outlaws, with you.”


End file.
